


Imagined Possibilities

by trixm



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6864769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trixm/pseuds/trixm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been fourteen months since Ray left and Ryan was forced to follow suit or move forward.  Ryan had chosen the latter and thought that everything was working out.  And it was.<br/>Or at least he thought it was until a a certain former crew member runs into him in a coffeehouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagined Possibilities

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! It's been two months away and it is nice to be back. Figured I'd get myself some practice with something shorter and (possibly) less angst-y than usual. I think? Also, disclaimer: I banged this out in a couple of hours and while I've proofread it a few times, it hasn't been formally beta'd so please forgive me if I do something silly like mix up apparition and apprehension.  
> Because I do that.  
> A lot.

“Hey Ry-bread, didn’t expect to see you here.”

If Ryan had any less control of his emotions, he would have choked on his coffee.  Thankfully was able to save himself a burnt esophagus as the ghost of Fake AH Crew past appeared across the booth from him.

“Ray,” Ryan acknowledged mildly, sipping again at his mug with only a fraction more tightness in his grip.  The younger man watched him from across the table, eyes following the cup from the table to Ryan’s lips with interest.  Ray’s own frothy concoction seemed to have been forgotten for the moment as he was totally enraptured with t Ryan’s long, calloused fingers to his chapped rosy lips.  Or maybe the coffee just looked really good, Ryan considered.

Ryan swallowed and set the cup aside, breaking the spell. 

Ray took a sip of his own, gaze trained on Ryan’s eyes as if that had always been where he was looking.  Ryan offered his own detached stare, seemingly bored by the appearance of his former crewmate.

Really, Ryan was just counting the seconds until the other man left and he could breathe again.

Ryan hadn’t seen Ray in fourteen months.  That isn’t to say he hadn’t heard of him in that time- even though Ray had left the crew and picked back up on freelance sniping, it was a small community. Different game, same business.  Ryan wasn’t sure if that made Ray’s departure worse or better.  On one hand, he knew that the man currently across from him had been doing well for himself.  On the other…

Ryan took another sip of his coffee, porcelain straining under his grip.  Ray seemed to take this as a sign Ryan wasn’t going to say anything.  With a frown, Ray lounged back into the booth to watch Ryan.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’ve been?” Ray prompted, fingers drumming on the cardboard holder around his drink in a rhythmic pattern.

“Hard not to know how you’ve been when you’ve taken jobs with all the regulars,” Ryan pointed out, voice still impassive.

“Aw, don’t be like that.  Don’t hate the player, hate the game, man.  They just knew I could get the job done.”  Even though Ryan knew this to be true, he just raised an eyebrow at Ray.  If Geoff had been here there would have been a lot more yelling about honor and not stealing clients away from the man who made you.  Arguably, Ray had been made long before Geoff came around, but the king of Los Santos really had jump started Brownman’s career.  But what was that saying?  No honor among thieves.

Ryan repeated that much to Ray, who just nodded along.  He had the gall to not even look sheepish about his defection and subsequent offences.  Ryan was thankful they were in a coffee shop at that moment because watching Ray agree so quickly to the terrible insinuations about his character were just so wrong in Ryan’s mind that he would have reached over and shook the man if it wasn’t in public.  An impostor wearing Ray’s face, the voice in the back of his head tried to convince his consciousness.  The Ray he knew, _his_ Ray, would never slight loyalty.

After all, Ray’s opinions on the subject were why Ryan had began to trust him in the first place.

Late night conversations on the roof about doubts of being in a crew; early morning whispers of stinging pasts traded between drags on a spliff; tentative touches between two men who were so averse to contact that it was a miracle neither shot off the offending appendage of the other.  These moments were what colored Ray and Ryan’s connection in the latter’s mind.  A common ground founded on a history of being abandoned and betrayed to create a husk of a human who rather be isolated than trust another.

Oh but Ryan had trusted. 

He had trusted the smaller sniper and that trust grew to the lanky British man and the loudmouthed leader and the clever right hand man and finally the brash explosives expert.  Ray had opened the floodgates for his trust and things had seemed to be right for once and Ryan could feel his good days outweigh his bad.

…on the other hand, the man who he had shared so many nights talking about fears and dreams and passions had left.  Ray left the crew, all of them.  Ray had abandoned him.  So for as much as it was a relief to hear from other crews that Brownman was running up in the ranks on his own, it hurt because he couldn’t hear it from the man himself.  His conversation partner was gone.

But now here Ray was, sitting across from Ryan and expecting something from him.  What, Ryan didn’t know and couldn’t imagine.  Ray had made it clear with words like ‘unfulfilled’ and ‘don't fit in’ that he wanted nothing to do with them anymore.  He made it extra obvious with over a year of silence.  So Ryan was just going to finish his coffee and try to not think where that left the words spoken between the two.  If Ray could just leave with half a conversation between him and Geoff and not a word to the rest of the men, Ryan couldn't imagine they ranked very highly at all.

“Well, I guess I’ve been good from a business standpoint,” Ray said after a minute of silence.  Ryan was dragged from his thoughts by the sound of Ray’s voice, storing every word he said at this table in hope it might be some clue.  He’d been puzzling the problem that was their relationship? Friendship? Whatever the category of their interactions for the past fourteen months and this might be Ryan’s only chance to try and gleam some sort of truth or closure.

Not that Ryan would let on his interest.  Instead, he glanced at the clock above the espresso machine and the back to Ray.  The other man’s fingers were still strumming nonsense against his cup, Ray’s gaze on Ryan unwavering.  When Ryan stayed quiet, Ray’s frown deepened.

“You know, you used to talk a lot more,” Ray sighed.

“Not really,” Ryan said with a shrug.

“Uh, dude, pretty sure I couldn’t get you to shut up after you finally took your mask off for me.”  Ryan just grunted in response.  “Did Geoff tell you not to talk to me?”

“No,” Ryan ground out.  Ray’s eyebrows shot up, obviously incredulous of Ryan’s rough response.  “He really didn’t.”

“Okay.  Then what’s up?”  Ray asked the question so flippantly, as if this wasn’t the first time the two had been face to face in months.  As if Ray hadn’t run out how he did.  When he did.  How they had just-

“Nothing,” Ryan said, voice blank again as he used all of his willpower to wipe his mind.  The man before him was nothing but a cauterized wound in his memory, Ryan reasoned with himself.  It’ll always be an ugly scar but just get past the first while and you won’t notice it staring back at you in the mirror every day.  Ryan just wanted that day to come soon.

“How are the rest of the lads?  Michael and Gavin?”

“Great,” Ryan assured, eyes narrowing just a bit.  “Jeremy fits right in with them.”

“Heard he got the job,” Ray seemed to muse aloud.  “Didn’t know how.  Wouldn’t have picked him as a good fit.  Too… Dragonface for Vav and Geoff.”

“Well, he fits.  He’s eager and good at his job.  Loyal.”  Ray smiled one of his self-depreciating smiles at that last jab Ryan couldn’t help but throw in.

“Good,” was Ray’s only response, not rising to the bait.  In his head, Ryan imagined half a dozen different scenarios in which Ray had acknowledged his barb, some more realistic than others.

_‘Loyal?  What are you saying, Ry-bread?’_

Ray’s fingers stilled on his cup, sitting up straight so that there was even less room between his face and Ryan’s.  Eye contact unbroken, neither dared to blink.

_‘Gonna replace me and have the R+J connection?’_

Ryan’s own fingers curled harder around his mug before releasing and repeating the action, subconsciously careful to not end up spilling the hot liquid down his chest.  Each second of silence ticked by on the clock as Ryan counted in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four as if his lungs would stop accepting the air at any moment.

_‘Does he keep you company on the roof at night too?’_

Ray’s eyes began to flick their attention back and forth between Ryan’s own, as if trying to sort something out.  Ryan was thankful for the years he spent creating his walls as it seemed that they were effective even against the person who knew him best.  Ryan wondered if he really knew Ray at all.

_‘I think we both know that loyalty on goes as far as self-interest.’_

Ray’s gaze slid to Ryan’s lips and in a moment of weakness the older man felt his tongue dart out and wet them.  Ray seemed to tense for a moment, eyes dropping on some point beyond Ryan’s form.

_‘Bet I still kiss you better.’_

Ryan wanted him to say something or to say something to him.  He didn’t care, it didn’t matter either way as long as this silence was broken.  Ryan had enough silence since Ray had left and this was his one opportunity.  One shot to justify the years spent pouring himself into the other man.  Ryan just needed-

_But he isn’t me.’_

“It was good seeing you, Ryan,” Ray announced abruptly, sliding out of the booth.  Ryan watched as he patted down his hoodie and sipped at his drink, looking anywhere but at Ryan or his booth.  After another beat of silence, Ray hunched his shoulders and glanced hesitantly at Ryan.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” Ray offered awkwardly.

“I guess so,” Ryan heard himself say, mind already outside this moment and replaying this entire encounter to try and fit it into the story of the Vagabond and Brownman.  Ray made a small movement but quickly aborted it, as if he meant to wave or reach out for Ryan but thought better.  The latter was probably wishful thinking on Ryan’s part but the possibilities on how this meeting could have went were already overloading his brain.

As Ray exited the shop and turned left, away from the row of windows Ryan could easily watch him from, Ryan took another sip of his coffee but found it had gone cold.  It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since Ray sat down across from him but Ryan felt as if it had shifted everything.  Ray had that effect on him; it was as if his life was a game of dominoes, all set and rigid, but all Ray had to do was give one small nudge to a single block and it they would transmute into something else entirely.  It had happened before and the tightness in his chest had Ryan wondering if everything had been shifted off kilter.

Or maybe it was just him.  This place didn’t have the best coffee anyway and all he really needed was a couple of deep breaths.  Ryan could definitely taste the dregs of burnt coffee beans in the bottom of his cup and he was no longer aware of the intricacies of breathing.  Maybe Ray had honestly just wanted to say hello but was weirded out by Ryan’s silence.  Ryan knew he could be unnerving, although it had never seemed to bother Ray before. 

But that was _before._

Ryan left the cup of coffee on the table and exited out the front, just like Ray had a few moments earlier.  On the sidewalk, Ryan glanced to his left, mind whirling with possibilities of would haves and could haves.  Imagined possibilities could be the most dangerous ideas if you let them have you.

With a shake of his head, Ryan turned right and headed back towards the penthouse.  He didn’t have time to think about this strange day.  Ryan had already spent too long losing minutes and hours contemplating Ray and his absence in the crew while making that hole more profound with his aloofness.  Too long drowning in his own sorrow and over analyzing every interaction while the rest of Fake AH had to pull double time to make up for their lack of muscle and sniper.  Too, too long shutting out the rest of them because if Ray could do it, _who would be next._

Fourteen months had passed and while turning left seemed like fate for a split second, Ryan knew that choosing to go to the right brought him back to where he belonged. It had taken half the time that had passed until he had realized that Fake AH was home and it was embarrassing that all it took was a few minutes of seeing Ray to shake his foundation, but Ryan pushed those thoughts away.

If a strange shadow seemed to lurk the rooftops of a few jobs or enemies were strangely taken out before the crews arrival, Ryan pretended not to notice.  After all, Los Santos wasn’t that big for a city and people who run in the same crowds eventually had to meet.

Maybe there wasn’t anything _to_ notice, anyway.  Small cities also mean that everyone eventually has a target on their back and Fake AH wasn’t the only crew in town with beefs.  Plus Ryan spent most of his time decidedly not looking at rooftops because that was, ironically, Lil’ J’s job.  For all of Ryan’s trust issues he could not even trust his own mind at times and he knew there was no sense to start focusing on these little things.

So when Gavin asked Ryan about his day and Ryan told him he got coffee, he didn’t mention his doubts.  Nor did he mention seeing Ray.  Ryan did not bring up their past or hypothesize about the future.  Instead, Ryan smiled gently at Gavin as he squawked indignantly about Ryan not bring him a hazelnut latte.  He teased him on his caffeine preferences.  Ryan finally promised to get him one next time after enduring a full Gavin whining session.  And two coffees, light 'n sweet, for Michael and Geoff.  And a green tea for Jack.  And of course ‘one of whatever Gavin is having’ for Jeremy.

And Ryan planned on it because no matter what went on inside of his head, Ryan knew that this was his crew.  Here and now.  The Fake AH of Los Santos, in all of its notoriously questionable glory, was the only thing that Ryan had full trust in.

Ryan had no regrets.


End file.
